by Sam Amick, USA TODAY Sports

by Sam Amick, USA TODAY Sports

OAKLAND - In a sea full of yellow, Stephen Curry was simply golden. Again.

The Golden State Warriors guard put on yet another show on Sunday night at Oracle Arena, thrilling this electric sellout crowd that donned those team-issued T-shirts and putting the Denver Nuggets in a 3-1 series hole with a 115-101 win.

"He was always an All-Star!" one fan yelled as the flags waved and the music blared late.

No arguments here.

If playoff performances are the most influential part of a player's legacy - and they are - then Curry may well be remembered as one of the greats by the time this series is over. With the Nuggets within four midway through the third quarter, Curry scored 22 of his 31 points points during a 25-10 Warriors run that put them up 91-72 entering the fourth quarter and was six minutes of six minutes and 22 seconds of basketball bliss.

Curry, who - according to the TNT telecast - took a pain-killing injection before the game for his ankle and couldn't open his right eye in the fourth quarter because of a wayward Corey Brewer finger, was nearly unstoppable.

"I don't know what happened," Curry, who was sporting a makeshift eye-patch after the game, said of the third quarter. "It took awhile for it to kick in and it got loose as the game went on. I was able to feel like I could move a little better."

Asked about a Magic Johnson tweet in which the Lakers legend said a star had been born in Curry, Warriors coach Mark Jackson said, "Well, those guys are just coming to the hospital. The baby has been born already. I've been watching it all year long."

Said Jarrett Jack, who had 21 points and nine assists: "I know this one thing, and I know this for sure. When they start having these 'best point guards in the NBA' conversations man, I don't know who has to get out of the conversation for him to get in, but he's definitely kicked the door down. This last two months of the season and then these playoffs man? Come on man. It's ridiculous."

This latest virtuoso performance came, of course, after his 30-point, 13-assist outing in Game 2 and the 29-point, 11-assist Game 3 performance in Game 3 that came after there was some question as to whether he would even play because of a left ankle turn. Curry, who hit 10 of 16 overall and six of 11 from three-point range, has Golden State on the verge of a most unexpected second-round series.

At a time when the Nuggets had finally started to look like the team that won 57 games in the regular season and maintained their momentum despite losing small forward Danilo Gallinari to a torn ACL in early April, Curry's mesmerizing act in the second half of the third quarter put them back on the brink. It started with his three pointer with 6:22 left and the Warriors up 66-62, when Curry took the pass from Carl Landry on the left, shucked Wilson Chandler with a quick pump-fake, then buried a three from the corner that was so pure he didn't even feel the need to watch it go in.

He spun toward the Nuggets bench as the ball came down, heading back the other way before the rabid crowd of 19,596 even had a chance to cheer. They exploded a split second later, and the deafening roar would only grow from there.

Another three from near the top that pushed the lead to nine, a fortuitous finger-roll layup that came after his initial pass was batted and landed in his lap, a stepback 15-footer that left 37-year-old point guard Andre Miller looking dazed on this island he had no business being stranded on.

But no shot defined Curry's night more than the three that came with 1:54 remaining, that 29-footer that came off so care-free, so confident, that it was almost as if he was dominating at Davidson again. With Miller struggling, Chandler stunted and then faded because, well, even shooters don't shoot from that far out. Except for this shooter, who buried the shot from just a few feet away from the scorer's table.

Nuggets coach George Karl was clear about the improvements he wanted to see before tipoff, when he shared how he'd asked his team to win the rebounding battle for the first time in this series and pointed to Andre Iguodala and Kenneth Faried as the two players who needed to take their games up a serious notch. Two of those things took place, as Iguodala was aggressive and had 19 points while Denver won the boards battle 37-29. But with center Andrew Bogut carrying the Warriors in the first half and Curry in the second, it didn't matter.

During a first half that the Warriors led 56-44, Bogut inspired the kinds of cheers typically reserved for those trampoline dunkers that entertain NBA crowds the league over during breaks in the action. You could multiply the typical decibel level by at least a dozen, of course, the oohs and aahs that came not only with his flurry of four furious dunks but the instant, in-house video replays that accompanied each and every one and put the cheers on a seemingly-endless loop.

But even when it was about his slams, it wasn't about his slams. His alley-oop from Curry in the second quarter had the sort of subplot that said everything about the way the Warriors went about this task - the lumbering Bogut sprinting toward the sideline and into the fans to save the ball from going out of bounds, then taking a quick breather before sneaking backdoor for the slam that blew this building's roof off - again. They were smart. They were strong. And Bogut, who added a behind-the-back, lefty pass to Jarrett Jack (21 points, nine assists) for a three in the right corner moments later that put the Warriors up 45-37, was the one leading the way early. He finished with 12 points, four rebounds and two blocks before halftime, his efforts including a right-handed hammer in the face of JaVale McGee that cued the hysterics yet again. And the Warriors were just getting started.

The Nuggets host Game 5 on Tuesday at the Pepsi Center, where they were 38-3 this season.

"It's a basketball game; it's not an impossible task," Karl said. "Taking their confidence and their enthusiasm away is going to be a great challenge. The great gift of NBA basketball is that it usually takes one game to turn around your confidence. We are the team without confidence and they are the team with confidence."